Settlers - San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center
Settlers - San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center
Settlers - San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center
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and "Break up the narionalisric, racial groups by combitiiny<br />
[heir members for America." (16) It was thus well<br />
understood by the bourgeoisie that these European<br />
workers' consciousness of themselves as oppressed national<br />
minorities made them open to revolutionary ideas -<br />
and, on the other hand, their possible corruption into<br />
Amerikan citizens would make them more loyal to the<br />
U.S. Imperialism.<br />
The meeting formed the Inter-Racial Council, with<br />
corporate representatives and a tactical window-dressing<br />
of conservative, bourgeois "leaders" from the immigrant<br />
communities. T. Coleman DuPont became the chairman.<br />
Francis Keller, the well-known social worker and reformer<br />
became the paid coordinator of the Council's programs. It<br />
sounded just like so many of the establishment pacify-theghetto<br />
committees of the 1960s - only the "races" being<br />
"uplifted" were all European.<br />
The Council's main efforts were directed at propaganda.<br />
The American Association of Foreign Language<br />
Newspapers (in actuality a private company that placed<br />
Amerikan big business advertising in the many foreign<br />
language community newspapers) was purchased. With<br />
total control over the all-important major advertising, the<br />
Council began to dictate the political line of many of those<br />
newspapers. Anti-communist and anti-union articles were<br />
pushed.<br />
The Council also, in concert with government<br />
agencies and private capitalist charities, promoted<br />
Americanization "education" programs (i.e. political indoctrination):<br />
"adult education" night schools for immigrants,<br />
state laws requiring them to attend Americanization<br />
classes, laws prohibiting the use of any language except<br />
English in schools, etc., etc. The Americanization<br />
movement had a lasting effect on the Empire. The Inter-<br />
Racial Council was dropped by the capitalists in 1921,<br />
since by then Americanization had its own momentum.<br />
(17)<br />
At the same time, national chauvinism and the<br />
specific class interests of the Euro-Amerikan petitbourgeoisie<br />
and labor artistocracy led ro campaigns<br />
against the new immigrants. Sta,te licensing acts in New<br />
York, Connecticut, Michigan, Wyoming, Arizona and<br />
New Mexico barred non-citizen immigrants from competing<br />
with the settler professionals in medicine, pharmacy,<br />
architecture, engineering, and so on. (18) Under the<br />
banner of anti-Catholicism, various right-wing organizations<br />
attempted to mobilize the settler masses against the<br />
new immigrants. One such group, the Guardians of Liberty,<br />
was headed bv retired U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen.<br />
Nelson Miles (who had commanded the military respressions<br />
at both Wounded Knee and later in the invasion of<br />
Puerto Rico). The Loyal Legion, the Ku Klux Klan and<br />
other secret para-military groups were also heavily involved<br />
in attacks on immigrants, particularly when they<br />
became active in socialist organizations or went out on<br />
strikes. (19)<br />
Most significantly, the settler trade-unions<br />
themselves started picturing these new proletarians as the<br />
enemy. The unions of the American Federation of Labor<br />
(A.F.L.) were heavily imbued with the labor aristocracy<br />
viewpoint of the "native-born" settlers. This was true even<br />
though an earlier wave of German and Irish immigrants<br />
had played such a large role in founding those unions.<br />
Now they fought to bar the "Dago" and "Hunky" from<br />
the better-paid work, from union membership, and even<br />
from entering the U.S. In New York, the Bricklayers<br />
Union got Italians fired from public works projects.<br />
A.F.L. President Samuel Gompers united with right-wing<br />
U.S. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge in campaigning to extend<br />
the anti-Asian immigration bars to the "nonwhite"<br />
Eastern and Southern Europeans as well. (20)<br />
This process was very visible in the steel mills. It<br />
became socially unacceptable for "white" settlers to work<br />
with the Slavs and the Italians on the labor gangs. Increasingly<br />
they left the hard work to the European national<br />
minorities and either moved up to foreman, skilled positions<br />
- or out of the mills. The companies pushed the<br />
separation. Euro-Amerikans applying for ordinary labor<br />
jobs were told: "only Hunkies work on those jobs, they're<br />
too damn dirty and too damn hot for a 'white' man ... No<br />
white American works in steel-plant labor gang unless he'<br />
64 nuts or booze-fighter." A steel labor history tells us: